The present invention relates to techniques for analyzing an image that includes information about a layout.
Suenaga, Y., and Nagura, M., "A Facsimile Based Manuscript Layout and Editing System by Auxiliary Mark Recognition," 5th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Vol. 2, IEEE, 1980, pp. 856-858, describe an editor that uses handwritten mark recognition. Information for manuscript editing is input from a facsimile transmitter. Original texts, graphics, and auxiliary marks drawn on paper are input to the system as binary pictures. The marks are recognized to make a picture allocation list and a graphic command list. Handwritten alphanumerics in graphics are extracted and recognized by OCR. Fair copies of texts and graphics are constructed based on the lists and are output to a facsimile receiver. As shown and described in relation to FIG. 2 of Suenaga's paper, the system includes a text editing subsystem and a graphics editing subsystem. The text editing subsystem, described at page 857, handles almost all kinds of texts having arbitrary size and format, including graphics patterns, estimating all parameters and instructions needed for editing from pictures of texts and marks. In Suenaga's paper, FIG. 3 shows marks, and FIGS. 4(a) and 4(b) show an example of handwritten text editing. The graphical editing subsystem, described at page 858, reforms line drawings using straight line or circular arc approximation and recognizes characters by OCR if marks specify to do so. FIG. 5 shows handwritten marks and seal marks. Marks are recognized by a procedure based on border following, to construct a mark parameters list for graphics. The picture of graphics is divided into portions--pixels surrounded by "cutout-P" marks are extracted to be stored in a binary picture file; pixels surrounded by "cutout-C" marks are extracted and sent to OCR to be recognized; and the remaining pixels are regarded as line drawings and expressed by a line drawings list (LDL). In accordance with the LDL, line drawings specified by certain marks are approximated by straight lines, circular arcs, or predetermined templates such as rectangles etc. A graphic command list is constructed and graphics are generated accordingly. An example is shown in FIGS. 6 and 1 in Suenaga's paper.